Borzoi Reader

¥2 September 1991-original release

Borzoi Reader is one of a series of complimentary ProtoTypeª from phi*JaMaCon associates. In creating commercial fonts, there are many prototypes made, some of which are useful in their own right. Each ProtoTypeª  release as of 21 April 1991 contains Type 1 hinted (usually) laser fonts along with the TrueTypeª equivalents.

To use any ProtoTypeª Type 1 font, copy the laser font to your System Folder, and install the screen fonts either in your System file with Font/DA Mover 3.8 or higher, or use MasterJugglerª or Suitcaseª to install them. To install any ProtoTypeª TrueTypeª font, copy the suitcase with extension (TT) to your system file with FONT/DA Mover 4.1 or above, or use Suitcaseª version 1.2.11 or above. If you like the font, please feel free to use and distribute them. You are not allowed to modify them in any way; for example, you are not allowed to use Metamorphosis or Font Monger to create editable files. Furthermore, phi*JaMaCon associates retains all current and future commercial rights and other rights for all distributed ProtoTypeª.

Some notes on TrueTypeª. Older Apple LaserWriters donÕt have enough memory to use the TrueType scaler. The Apple print driver will then create a Type1 unhinted Postscript font and download that to the printer. For some ProtoTypeª, nonhinting gives very uneven stems; in that case use the Postscript fonts. (Bummer, I have an old Laserwriter myself).

Borzoi is a text font with only three faces, Plain, Italic and Bold. Just like Century Old Style from Adobe. The plain was inspired by Sumner StoneÕs Stone Informal, but is sans serif. The italic is basically obliqued upper case, while the lower case has been modeled after Chancery cursive styles. The Bold is simply a bolded plain. I have been reading Walter TracyÕs book on type design, and have been impressed how a true or quasi true italic gives a good contrast in print. If you choose Bold-Italic you will just get the Italic version. The name comes from my college days in which the English class had the ÒBorzoi Reader.Ó I always wondered what a Borzoi was, just like I still wonder what a Georgetown Hoya is. 

Borzoi was created in Fontstudio 2.0 from outlines first created in Fontographer 2.x and 3.x. At this point in time, 2 Sept 91, Fontstudio feels to me to have a somewhat better overall program with outstanding documentation, but it is quite slow compared to Fontographer. And the creation of the font families was done with StyleMerger, another Altsys utility. All this to say that the serious font creator does need both, as many others have pointed out.

Credits go to Altsys and Earl Allen for their outstanding support of Fontographer, Metamorphosis etc, to Letraset for Fontstudio 2.0, and of course to Connie, who puts up with all this nonsense.

Phil Noguchi
phi*JaMaCon associates
5110 Viking Road
Bethesda, MD  20814-5711